Morocco is a land with an agricultural vocation before being an industrialized country. Everything depends here on the state of the harvest, which remains subjected to the narrow dependance of the crops on the capricious weather. In fact, one is never sure to predict with exactitude the atmospheric conditionswhich are expected to prevail during well defined periods of the year to speculate upon the quantities of rain, if any, that are going to fall in order to sprinkle the cultivated fields in the rural areas.

The agricultural population represents more than 80 per cent of the total inhabitants of this country, and lives from the land production if ever the season was rainy. But, when the country is faced with the scourge of drought, the peasant shouts famine. Both the sector of trade and that of handicrafts cease their activities when the peasants as potential buyers and relyable customers of these important sectors rarefy their visits and keep spending their savings in shopping. The production process is seezed up in the majority of the economic activities, the crisis takes place and the misery increases.

Morocco was affected during these last years by a very hard period of drought. The sky was miserly of rain. The land became arid. The famished peasants dashed into the cities. The crisis and the misery were the main concern of all the social groups of the population. But, when the drought period was over, the people appeared more optimistic. The rain fell heavily and the fields were irrigated throughout the whole country as well as in the neighbour countries of Algeria and Tunisia, which largely contributed to mitigate the effects of the crisis. The landscape offered a green scenery, and was seen again as a paradise, strew with flowers and exposed to the breeze of the spring season.

As for the forecasts, the coming agricultural season is announced to be very good. We can therefore already be confident that it would produce a much better harvest than ever produced during years. The peasant will see his production doubled and, with the will of God, we must from now on rationalize the organisation and distribution of the expected production on the domestic market and adopt the necessary measures to facilitate the export of our production's surplus abroad.

Morocco is threatened either by the famine when the rain is rare during the periods in which it is needed, or by a surplus of production when an abundant supply of rain guarantees an optimal harvest. This surplus provokes a dangerous fall of the prices which can sometimes reach a level where the peasant is threatened of bankruptcy. In such a case, the crisis keeps acting on the corn price until it is reduced to its floor level of 30 francs for a measure of 100 kilograms, according to the latest estimations.

This means that the peasant will be penalized, in a moment where the law of supply and demand is acting in his disadvantage, to sell his goods with loss. He will then be unable to cover the expenditure he had to make by subsidising the grain production from his very own resources. He is no longer prepared, both fiancial and weather related, to carry all the risks associated with growing a crop for the next harvest, unless he can sell his produce to a realistic price. Only then, would he be in a position to face the exorbitant costs of the acquisition of the ploughing instruments and the indispensable grains intended for sowing.

It is also necessary to keep in mind that the peasant must face, besides impositions and taxes and the vital satisfaction of his essential needs, the payment to the landowner, in cash or in nature, of an indemnity covering the hire of his property during the agricultural season.

In such conditions, the sales product of the whole harvest can hardly allow the peasant to cover a part of his expenses. As a matter of fact, his business can easily go bankrupt. It is therefore not astonishing to see him complaining about his activity, whether the season was good or bad. The need of fixing the prices of the agricultural produce on a high level is thus essential to achieve a better balance between the supply and the demand. even if such a statement contradicts somehow the economic rules commonly admitted.

The peasant is a master piece in the process of reactivating the industrial and commercial activities. If the crops fail because of drought, or if the produce of a poor harvest is sold with loss, the peasant would enter the city as if he were a beggar, and not as a customer with a sizeable purchasing power at his disposal. On the other hand, if he can sell his goods at a reasonable price, he will then have the opportunity to buy the products of the craftsman and the goods of the tradesman, allowing these two economic actors to have new resources to undergo the revival of their undertakings.

But if the prices drop, the peasant will go to his ruin, the craftsman will no longer find any purchaser, the tradesman will declare bankruptcy, the business firms will not have another way to solve their financial problems but by closing their factories. Rare will be those who will have enough liquidities to buy the agricultural produce, even if it is offered at a very low price. The fall of the course will only benefit to the traditional speculators who handle the market according to their conveniance. Those are the ones who allow themselves to sell in "rials" the same quantities of goods bought 5 times cheaper in current "francs". Moreover, the peasant who is short of cash, requires almost always to get paid in advance in order to be able to cover his debts and pay his taxes. His urgent need of money makes him oft agree to the dishonest conditions put by the purchaser and handle his goods far beyond their cost of production.

For two years, the "Corn Office" in France has been reorganized on the basis of a new economic conception which protects the peasant without disadvantaging the consumer. We thought that the creation of a similar institution in Morocco would save our peasant from the rapacious business methods of the speculators. A moroccan "Corn Office" was actually created on our premises; but it specialized in the marketing of common wheat, the exploitation of which being reserved in our country almost exclusively to the profit of the French colonists. Very few Moroccans - in fact only those among them who possess vast agricultural properties - have access to the exploitation of such kind of grain. The small farmer who deserves help and assistance, did not get any benefit from the creation of this Office.

Last year, some associations were constituted in agricultural cooperatives to help the Moroccan peasant face the effects of the season's bad harvest. But as, according to the forecasts, the coming season promises a much better output than that of the current year, such associations will no longer be able to fulfill their mission. The insufficiency of their reserves would by no means allow them to assist the agricultural sector by financing all it produces. The stop of providing such an assistance would without any doubt provoke a brutal fall of the prices; and the first victim will again be the peasant himself. How can we get out from this impasse? That will be the object of the coming article.

If the price of the agricultural produce breaks down, it will generate a situation in which the peasant will be doomed to failure. And if the peasant fails, the economic activity as a whole will cease to function. This is a reality which does not suffer any dispute. Our hope is that the agricultural production to come is consistant enough to meet the needs of the country. But which means is it advisable to implement in order to organize a suitable distribution of these products on the internal market? Which channels have to be borrowed to export a part of the harvest abroad? How can the protection of the prices be organized to bar the road in front of the speculators who benefit at the same time from the financing brought upstream by the producer and the cost price paid downstream by the consumer?

The introduction of hard wheat into the distribution citcuit of the "Corn Office" took priority over all other means. The "Corn Office" - as said before - was created two years ago to garantee the provisioning of the internal market and to create the most favourable conditions to run out a part of this grain abroad, as it is currently the case for common wheat. The peasant will find in the domestic market enough opportunities to sale his produce and can thus be able to save a financial reserve to refund his debts, pay his taxes, face his vital needs throughout the year and, last but not least, prepare himself to the coming season which he expects to be more productive than the preceding ones.

As long as Morocco produces a large variety of grains - barley, corn and others - in addition to common and hard wheat, the "Corn Office" should be transformed into a "Cereals Office" in charge of organizing the collection of all kinds of cereals as well as their marketing and their export. However, it seems that this Office faces, for the moment being, some difficulties in assuming the role of promoting hard wheat. As a final straw in this analysis, we can propose two possible means of intervention as follows:

The equilibrium of the balance of trade is broken in Morocco. We import twice as much as we export. This matter of fact leads us beyond all doubts towards catastrophic years during which we will have no other choice but contracting a series of loans, the ones after the others. Otherwise, the whole economic process is threatened to grind to a halt. For this reason, we must devote a great deal of interest to the economic life of our country, and make an end, once and for all, to the policy which increases year after year the amount of the national debt. The most effective means to reach that goal is to maintain a rigourous balance between our imports and our exports.

I would like also to point out to the Department of Agriculture the imperious necessity to cease creating all kinds of obstacles which prevent the moroccan peasant from cultivating common wheat. The role of the above mentioned associations is to be redefined so that they may provide the peasant with the requested quantities of grain. The Department of Agriculture must, on its side, encourage the latter to cultivate the common wheat in order to profit from the advantages granted to the exploitation of this type of corn and to diversify his agricultural production in order to be able to satisfy the domestic demand and respond to the needs of the international market.